Difference between revisions of "Charley Patton Guitar Keys and Positions"

Revision as of 05:14, 26 March 2008

compiled by Andrew Mullins

In compiling this list, I used the remastered Yazoo CDs The Best of Charlie Patton (Yazoo 2069) and Charlie Patton - Primeval Blues, Rags, and Gospel Songs (Yazoo 2074) for all songs available on those discs. The first disc features speed corrections to "High Sheriff" and "Jersey Bull Blues," and I think "Down the Dirt Road" is more true as well, at least compared to JSP. The second Yazoo CD features another 8 tracks at corrected speeds: "Revenue Man Blues," "Hang It On the Wall," "Stone Pony Blues," "34 Blues," "Love My Stuff," "Troubled Bout My Mother," "Oh Death" and "Poor Me". I'm going to take Rich Nevins' word for it that these are now the correct speeds, but what it does mean is that in Patton's later recordings, where most of these songs come from, he was tuned a bit flat or a bit sharp on several tunes. I've noted places where he is a bit sharp or flat in parentheses. Patton was actually pretty meticulous about tuning, I find, so this is a minor point worth making. For songs not on the recent Yazoo releases, I used the JSP set, Charley Patton - Complete Recordings 1929-34.

NOTE: It's generally held that Patton wasn't using a capo but tuned up one, two or several steps. With some of these songs, one can see how he might have gone through several guitars doing this. You might want to use a capo instead. For standard tuning songs, I tuned to standard pitch then used a capo. For "Spoonful," I tuned the guitar to Vestapol at E. For the tunes in Spanish, I tuned to open G and capoed to A, Bb, B, as needed, though you could easily get away with open A, depending on your guitar. I'd recommend tuning it back down when you're done though. For the slide tunes, it's also worth noting he's likely playing lap-style for most of them. I have not included the Henry Sims songs, but they were all played out of E position, pitched at F#.

In the table below, the song title is followed by playing position, then actual pitch, then the 2nd guitar position (played by Willie Brown), if applicable. A "+" symbol means that the pitch is sharp of this key, but less than a fret. A "-" symbol means that the pitch is flat of this key but less than a fret.

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